Novasure Procedure: Understanding Endometrial Ablation for Irregular Bleeding

Question
Hi,
Do you know anything about the Novasure procedure? I am 37 with two children. I have very irregular bleeding. There are only about 5 days out of a month that I don't have bleeding or spotting. It is really affecting my sex life with my husband. All tests come back normal, so I asked my doctor if Novasure might help. She thinks it might and is willing to do the procedure but really didn't give me much info about it. I know what it is, but I have also been reading online about TONS of people still bleeding for very long periods of time after the procedure. Not just the normal two weeks of discharge/blood, but irregular bleeding such as I have now. Obviously if someone was having the procedure due to very heavy periods, then light bleeding throughout the year would not be too bad. But I am already dealing with that and that is why I am considering Novasure. Does it usually work in my situation? What are the real statistics? I don't want to do it if there is a large chance I will still bleed most of the month. Also, is there much pain during the procedure? Thanks

Answer
There are many methods of endometrial ablation, and Novasure is one.  In general endometrial ablation works quite well for heavy bleeding, and may or may not work for prolonged lighter bleeding such as what you have.  Since Novasure is a fairly simple procedure, I think it would be worthwhile for you to try.  It may solve your problem completely, and you'll be very happy, but there are no guarantees.  If you haven't tried birth control pills, that may be worthwhile.  The pill causes regular periods in most women.  If it did in you, that would indicate that the cause of your frequent bleeding is hormonal.  If not, then there is probably something about your uterus that causes the problem.  I was just at a conference at the Mayo clinic where they presented a study about endometrial ablation failures.  The 3 things that were associated with more failures were younger age (under 44), tubal ligation, and larger uterus.  It sounds like you only have one of these.  In summary, I suspect that Novasure will work well for you, but you'll probably still have some bleeding but less in amount and less often.  I hope that's helpful.